Short Link 12

Awards Daily early twitter reactions to Gravity
Gold Derby uncovers a beautiful piece of trivia I totally didn't know (that happens less often than I'd like with awardage). If Homeland's stars both win Emmy again it will be the first time ever for a dual lead consecutive win! 
Film Doctor 12 unanswered questions about The World's End. I haven't spoken much about the movie but I thought it was the weakest of its trilogy, funny in parts and especially strong in its middle but I thought the opening and closing acts were weak.
Pajiba on Mandy Patinkin (Holla!) coming to grips with his past bad behavior. True little known story: I am a huge Mandy Patinkin fan so this renaissance has been wondrous for me.

Deadline the HFPA have made the wisest of decisions and have asked Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host the Golden Globes again. Let's all pray they say yes because the alternatives (*cough* Ricky Gervais) have been ghastly!
Forbes Madonna tops the biggest earners list in Hollywood this year with Steven Spielberg in runner up position
CHUD the Pompeii teaser, skewered in two sentences.
Pop Bytes Alexander Skarsgård is an awesome drunk cheerleader. På Svensk!
Guardian President Obama joins the plus column for Lee Daniels' The Butler
Cinema Blend wonders who Joss Whedon will kill off in The Avengers: Age of Ultron 

Finally...
I don't normally post straight up advertisements as news as most movie sites do (it feels shameless and also "abuse-me!" crazy since the studios aren't paying you but you're still airing their commercial!) but I hope this week's double feature from Paramount is really successful so I'm sharing it!

click on the pic to investigate this 2 for 1 offer

(Is this their sneaky way of getting WWZ over the $200 million mark which its been inching towards for weeks)

Double Features, which you almost always have to program yourself as Unofficial pairings, are one of the great joys of moviegoing. It's one reason we use to twin them up in that Best Pictures series. It would be so perfect if they became a thing again in theaters. Two movies for the price of one! I missed Star Trek Into Darkness (not that I felt its absence) but I liked World War Z far more than my review indicates. I must have been so crabby when I wrote that because it's one of the stickiest movies from summer 2013 with many strong sequences that more than make up for its wobbly seams and the rather blank protagonist... at least he's got the face of Brad Pitt! 

And while I'm providing free adspace please know that Short Term 12 (my pet cause of the summer) expands in or to all of these 12 cities on Friday...

Click on the pic for the official site

So do the right thing, make me proud, and round up 12 friends and go see it.

for entertainment purposes only
while we're on the subject of 12, here's an, uh, 13th link, for a 12 year old vine genius. The cat licking vine is the best thing evah.

I Guess That's Why They Call It The Link

Hotel Chatter Regina King shows us the best revenge when you're dumped and your tv show is cancelled: look fabulous and happy
Antagony & Ecstasy reviews all Star Trek movies for you because Tim is generous and completist like that
IndieWire Kon-Tiki directors get the next high seas Pirates of the Caribbean gig. Typecasting!  
Broadway World what's next for the stars of the now-departed Broadway tv series Smash? 

Variety Johnny Depp leave the Whitey Bulger biopic Black Mass... no reasons have been given but I'm guess playing real humans is too scary for him! 
Towleroad Joe Manganiello in the best shape of his life and filming Ten with childhood idol Arnold Schwarzenegger
Los Angeles Times Neil Patrick Harris to host the Emmys just a few months after hosting the Tonys. With him becoming a mainstay at both I guess he'll never get to host the Oscars. 
i09 7 bad storytelling habits taught to us by comic books (most of them are very evident in today's franchise culture... even the ones without superheroes) 

Today's Must Read
Self Styled Siren goes to the ATM, withdraws movie thoughts

Today's Must Watch
How it Should Have Ended take on Iron Man Three - really funny stuff. Gold stars to every moment in the Superman and Batman coffee break

Burning Questions: The Dumbing Down of Star Trek

Did you see "Into Darkness" this weekend?Hey everybody. Michael C. here. 

When the Trekkies complain that the JJ Abrams reboot had abandoned the spirit of the franchise, I understand their point. I am certainly no Trekkie (or do they prefer Trekker? See, I have no idea.) But I was raised on Star Trek: TNG, and while that show was never a gateway drug to the larger Trek universe, it did instill a respect for what the brand could be at its best. Its combination of exploration adventure, an optimistic portrait of the future, and Bradbury-esque ethical conundrums is a potent mix when it’s firing on all cylinders.

So I sympathize when the die-hard fans accuse Abrams of gutting the heart out of the franchise and stuffing the shell with streamlined, box office friendly action. Sure the ship is still the Enterprise, and Kirk and Spock are still at the helm, but is it still Star Trek? 

At the same time, as a movie fan first and foremost, I also felt the thing to do is judge the movie on its own terms. Should I deny I had a good time at a film because it didn’t meet my preconceived notions of what constitutes a Star Trek movie?

Now that Star Trek: Into Darkness has delivered more of the same hyper-charged fun and kicked off the debate again (Headline from Vulture: Prepare to be Bombarded Into Happiness) I think it’s about time I resolved the issue. Just how upset should I be about the dumbing down of Star Trek? 

Click to read more ...

Linkology

Details our friend Kurt interviewed Stoker baddie Matthew Goode
Salon on the depiction of Hitchcock's misogyny and voyeurism in recent biopics
Yahoo I missed this incredible make you feel super old news: Ralph Macchio is now as old as Pat Morita was inThe Karate Kid (1984). 

Guardian celebrates the worst mothers in film history from Now Voyager through Suddenly Last Summer to The Others - pretty solid choices among this collection of 10
Cinema Blend Danny Boyle apparently not interested in being the next James Bond director
/Film collects reactions to the first 30 minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness, shown in rough cut format
Awards Daily the press release for Black Nativity, a new Kasi Lemmons picture starring Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson and Forest Whitaker. Ooh, I hope it's good. On other note: how weird is it that Angela Bassett is the only member of that trio without an Oscar? 
NPR interview Rita Moreno on her career in musicals, movies and tv and her Oscar win...

I was sure that Judy Garland would probably win, because she was up for Judgment [at] Nuremburg. It was a straight role, not a musical. And I was so amazed and so surprised. Never even dreamed of doing a just-in-case little speech — 'and I want to thank Robert Wise and Jerry Robbins' — nothing! I didn't even work on anything like that, so when I got up there I did this memorable nonspeech. I said, 'I don't believe it!' And there's this pause, and then I say, 'Good lord.' And then I'm trying to think of something, and then I finally say, 'I leave you with that!'

I ran into the wings and I started to cry."

Hemlock Grove trailer

There's a lot of horror-themed tv shows on the way (this, Psycho-inspired The Bates Motel, and Hannibal) are you a Yes on any of them? Or perhaps a No or Maybe So

Solo Silhouette, Foreground

I snapped this photo at my local multiplex earlier this week. Matchy-matchy!

If you hadn't been paying any attention you'd be forgiven for thinking that Oblivion, 3, and Into Darkness (not the full titles) were a trilogy arriving in marathon form within one month as summer movie season kicks off.

All of these posters with solo (male) silhouettes against an imposing backdrop. Will cinema ever tire of one man shows, Our Hero against the world. They'll even sell ensemble films that way -- everyone knows that Star Trek Into Darkness will be an ensemble picture as all Star Treks are but you'd think Captain Kirk* was the sole survivor of a futuristic apocalypse by the looks of this.

Oh and the movie I was there to see that day...

I don't know if only one man will survivie a future apocalypse but only one graphic designer survived 2012; all movie posters for summer 2013 look the same!

* Readers are telling me that this silhouette belongs to the villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Either way the point remains, a solo silhouette that could be anyone... for the reader to project themselves into. Just one solitary hero against a harsh imposing world!